Physics in Pirates of the Caribbean.

[DKirby]

So I just got finished watching Pirates of the Caribbean for about the 15th time. Though something cought my eye this time around. It's the scene where Sparrow and Will are fighting on that teeter-totter...thing:

If you've seen the movie, you know how it goes. Sparrow ends up getting his sword stuck in a plank of wood above him, and pulls himself up to try and free the sword.

He gets the sword unstuck, and falls on one side of the teeter-totter, while Will is standing on the other side. The force of his fall causes Will to launch up into the air:

The arrow is pointing to his feet. From the looks of things, he's still going up after the scene ends (I took the snapshot right near the end of the scene).

At any rate, I don't see how he could've been launched that far up. But I don't know how to figure it out...which brings me here. Does anyone have/know a forumula for this sort of situation? I could probably estimate the height Sparrow fell, the height Will was shot up, and the length of the teeter-totter, and I'm sure I could find the actor's weights on some website. I just don't know what forumula I could plug those values into (or if there even is one).

Thanks in advance :)

 

[mrjeffy321]

well, while watching some of the special features on the DVD, I saw how they shot that scene, Will had a bunch of wires hooked up to him and he was pulled upward, and this was filed separate from the shot where Jack jumped onto the board.

Even if you ignor the movie magic in play, the "launch" doesn't seem very belieceable about how high he was launched upward considering how hard Jack could have jumped on the other end of the board.
When jack pushed down on one end, the other end pushed up with the same force.